The Aftermath or, A New Life
by digitalfletch
Summary: A Robert and Anna Scorpio story. Direct sequel to 'Into the Sunset' set in 1992. Sometimes there are bumps on the road to happily ever after…


Anna Scorpio crawled ashore, exhausted and soaked to the skin. It was pitch dark on the deserted Venezuelan beach. The crescent moon cast only the palest silvery glow across the lapping waves of the ocean. As she stumbled in the cold sand the desire to collapse and rest was nearly overwhelming, but an overriding panic pulled her to keep moving. She forced herself to her feet and scanned the beach anxiously. Where was he?

"Robert!" she called, her voice high and desperate. He'd been just behind her in the water when the yacht had exploded. She knew that nothing had happened to him – she just knew it in her bones – but where was he? "Robert!"

Other than the soft scraping of the waves across the sand, there was no sound.

"Robert!"

Senses straining, she heard a sputtering sound off to her left, then a harsh cough. She spun towards it and saw a dark shape – her husband, the man she loved more than life itself, staggering to his hands and knees in the surf.

Anna raced to his side. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest as she dropped to one knee, sliding one arm around his waist and helping him lever himself forward, onto the beach and away from the demanding pull of the water.

Together they stumbled onto dry sand, sinking to their knees with their arms still tightly wrapped around each other. Robert coughed again, groaned, and rested his head against his wife's brow. "We should get out of sight," he murmured as soon as he had caught his breath.

Anna nodded and with a massive effort they lurched to their feet. Clinging to each other, they made their way into a large copse of trees that lined the edge of the beach. Finding to her relief that the terrain underfoot was soft and grassy, she gratefully leaned up against a smooth beech tree trunk, its arching canopy hiding them from sight.

She was clad only in her underwear, having shed everything else in the ocean to prevent herself from being dragged under the waves. Robert, similarly, was wearing nothing but his shorts and incongruously, his socks.

She shivered in the cool night air and Robert reached for her immediately. "Come here," he breathed into her ear, folding her tight against him.

Anna buried her face into the warmth of his neck, inhaling deeply and letting the scent of salt, sand and something intrinsically _him_ wash over her. Feeling his thumb glide soothingly over her bare shoulder and momentarily losing focus because of it.

After Faison kidnapped her from Port Charles she'd never thought she would see Robert again. Had resigned herself to it, that it would be the only way she could keep he and their daughter safe. And yet beyond all hope or expectation he was here in her embrace, having once again risked his own life to save hers. Now that they were out of immediate danger she gripped his waist and tugged him down into the soft grass, wanting him with a painful urgency. She had missed him like she would miss the sun.

He rolled over onto his back, pulled her atop him and gently drew her head down to his. He kissed her tenderly, lovingly, his tongue brushing slowly and sensuously over her lips. She opened her mouth to him with desperate eagerness, finding herself drowning in the passionate intensity of the look in his eyes.

Then reality crashed back over her. Anna tore her lips from his. "Robert, wait –" she said breathlessly.

He ignored her words, his mouth finding hers again and robbing her of speech.

Once again she pulled away, this time placing one hand over his mouth. She saw the surprise in his eyes as she searched for the words to tell him what she must say. He had to know. But how could she tell him? Now that they'd found each other, beyond all reason and any hope, how could she break his heart yet again? Taking a deep breath, she ran her tongue across her lips and tried to summon the courage she was so desperately going to need.

As she struggled within herself, she saw with horror that realization had already dawned on Robert's face. The ardor and passion that had suffused his gaze died in an instant, vanishing completely. "You slept with Faison." It was a statement, not a question.

Anna nodded, her eyes filling with tears. "Twice," she whispered, the words choking her. "Oh, Robert, I never thought –" She stumbled to a halt as the stark misery in his eyes nearly undid her. _Never thought I'd see you again_.

Robert's hand dropped heavily to his side. He leaned away from her – just a fraction, but it was as though a chasm had opened between them.

"I'm so…so sorry." Knowing it was hopelessly inadequate. Meaning it with all her heart.

He said nothing, just lay still propped up on one elbow facing her. But his face had the look of a man whose best friend had just gutted him with barbed wire. A few months ago Robert had been hypnotized into believing that she had slept with Faison, and the very thought of it had driven him wild. She couldn't imagine how he must feel now that it had actually come to pass.

Anna could feel tears of anguished grief and remorse start to slide down her cheeks. Blinking hard, she breathed in a voice that cracked, "If you can ever forgive me, Robert, however long it takes…I'll be here. I love you."

Heartsick, she rolled over and lay with her back to him, giving him the space he needed to absorb the blow. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to reach out to him, to beg for forgiveness, to try and make things right between them. But there was nothing else she could say, no excuse or explanation she could give. Oh, Robert would understand why she had done it, that there would have been no other way for her to gain Faison's trust. As a former WSB agent he would readily see the calculated reasoning behind her actions. But that wouldn't soften the pain of her betrayal. Her latest betrayal, of the husband she loved and of their sacred wedding vows.

Silently, Anna wept. Once again she had hurt him so desperately. She knew that her disappearance from Port Charles would wound him harshly. She'd counted on it, hoping that their forced separation would keep him from following her, would keep him safe. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined he would come after her, that he would track her down to the Venezuelan coast and prevent her from trading her life for his and Robin's. And now, just when they'd experienced the joy of finding each other again, she had driven another stake into his heart.

And now there was nothing to be done except to wait, and hope – pray – that in time the wound would eventually heal. She wouldn't lose him over this, not entirely. The bond that they shared was too strong now to ever be shattered, of that she was certain. But the emotional distance between them that her actions had caused would be worse than any physical separation could ever be. There was nothing she could do but endure it, how-ever many weeks or months or years, and try to painstakingly rebuild the trust between them.

She could imagine no harsher punishment than that. That, and the memories that would serve as a constant bittersweet reminder of what she had lost.

Inexorably, her mind drew her back to the first time they had made love, on their first assignment together in Provence. She'd been so young and inexperienced, but Robert was patient and loving and together…they were wonderful. And she'd been so elated, so inspired, that the next morning she not only found the man they'd been sent to retrieve, but also smuggled him out from under the very noses of the DVX. But then, that was Robert – even from the very beginning he brought out the best in her.

Fresh tears coursed down her cheeks as images from the past flooded through her mind. Their magical wedding in San Marino, finding Robert again in New York, helping him defeat the Asian cartel, the first time she watched him hold his daughter in his arms, the infamous Valentine's Night massacre and the slow rekindling of their love, his marriage proposal in that cheesy motel… They'd had so few years together, yet somehow they'd managed to pack more joy and bliss into them than most couples did in a lifetime.

And nothing had been more joyous than their second wedding, in the Shakespeare Garden in Port Charles. It was without a doubt the happiest day of her life. Their first, impromptu Italian wedding had been enchanted, but this one – after so much time, all the years they'd spent apart, and the difficult, rocky path they'd trodden to find each other again, nothing else could compare. When they'd said their vows, and she'd looked into his eyes, it was as though no one and nothing else mattered, or even existed. She'd never been more sure of anything in her life, than that she wanted to spend the rest of it with this man.

Robert. Her sweet, goofy, wonderful Robert - arrogant, irritating, demanding, protective to a fault. Sometimes he drove her mad, and yet he'd always had the uncanny ability to make everything right in her life. Even their disastrous honeymoon night in France he somehow managed to redeem by taking her back to the hotel where they'd spent their first wedding night, fourteen years before…

Although her heart continued to ache unbearably, after what seemed like hours her tears slowed and through her misery she once again began to register the world around her: the stillness of the night air, the faint rustle of tree branches, a gentle touch on her bare shoulder. Warm lips on her earlobe. Anna froze, uncomprehending. It wasn't possible. Wish fulfillment – she was imagining this, she had to be.

She lay absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe. _Oh god, could it be...please…_

A moment later it came again, the feather-light brush of lips in her hair. Soft breath tickled her ear. Anna half-turned, her heart pounding, to discover Robert's face a few inches above hers. In the waning moonlight it was impossible to read his expression.

"When I left Port Charles," he whispered in a tone so soft she could barely hear it, "I swore I would get you back whatever the cost. Whatever the price, I would pay it." He paused, his voice breaking. "How could I love you like that and not forgive you?"

Anna's heart leaped in wonder. With an inarticulate cry of relief, she turned and buried her face in her husband's shoulder, feeling his arms wrap her in a fierce embrace. Fresh tears coursed down her cheeks as she slid her hands around his waist and up his back, relishing the sensation of his still-damp skin against hers.

She found his mouth with hers and devoured it hungrily, heedless of the tears of joy that continued to stream down her face. "I love you, I love you, I love you," she murmured as he planted wet kisses along her jaw and down her neck. Her arousal was immediate – it had been weeks since they had been together, and she ached with longing for the feel of him inside her.

He reached down, cupping one breast and shifting to undo her bra. She stilled his hand, searching his eyes for a long moment. Did he really forgive her? She could hardly believe it was possible, that he could absolve her for what she done when she could barely begin to forgive herself.

"Anna," he said, his voice so rich with love that it stopped her heart. He released the clasp of her bra and stroked her breast, his fingers teasing her nipple causing her to gasp with pleasure as his hands began to glide sensuously over her body. She stretched up to kiss him more deeply, trembling with anticipation and desire.

As the intensity of their passion rose with each passing instant she abandoned herself to him entirely, holding nothing back, and at the same time extending every ardent touch and delicate caress, letting all the adoration she felt for him pour through her hands and fingers and lips. They moved effortlessly, in perfect synchrony, molding themselves to one another in an urgent quest for wholeness, filling the void that life's cruelties sought to open between them and coalescing into a unity of bodies, minds and souls that would last but a moment yet stretch into infinity, eternal and unchanging.

They climaxed together as though they hadn't spent a single night apart and then lay spooned against one another with their limbs entwined.

Robert levered himself slowly onto one arm. He gazed softly down at his wife with love and something a little like awe in his eyes.

Anna was still breathing hard with exertion and release. Nothing in her life had ever felt that good. Nothing. A thought struck her and she sat up suddenly, catching Robert's hand and squeezing it in her own. "It was never like that with Faison," she promised him intently, terrified that he might imagine, even for a moment... "I swear it." He had to know that whatever she had done with Faison, she had never given him her heart.

"Ssshh," he hushed her with a finger to her lips. "That's the past. It's dead, buried, gone forever." He stroked her cheek with such tenderness that it brought tears to her eyes. "All I care about now is now. Us. Together. One day at a time. For the rest of our lives."

Anna couldn't help laughing, both at the words and at her joy at hearing aloud from him a sentiment that echoed her own heart's desire.

His eyes crinkled as he reviewed what he'd just said. "And every other cliché. Damn it, we deserve them all."

She leaned in and kissed the tip of his nose. "Yes, you do." She wasn't entirely certain yet what she deserved.

"We do," he corrected her at once.

Anna drew back and looked him searchingly in the eyes. "Do you really mean that, Robert? Are you sure? Us, together?"

He nodded in certainty. "Yes."

"Sharing everything?"

"Yes."

"Even danger?" Anna knew she was pressing him, but she couldn't help herself. In the past this was the one thing that Robert had never let her share, had always tried to protect and shield her from, no matter how much she wanted to be by his side. If it was really going to work between them, they had to resolve this once and for all. "If you risk your life, you let me risk mine beside you?"

Robert's nostrils flared. His jaw set in the familiar stubborn pose. "I can't do that."

She felt the old frustration rising. "Why not? Listen to me – if I was afraid to break, or… or bleed, Robert, believe me, I would have loved someone much easier to need."

His eyes darkened as he considered, clearly not happy. "I need you, too, luv. Therein lies the problem."

"Please, Robert," she pleaded. "You know…you know that I love you every bit as much as you love me. It would kill me if anything happened to you." God knew that was true. "I just want to be with you – whatever the danger. We're partners, and we can protect each other. No one can beat us when we work together."

He grimaced and pinched his eyes with his thumb and fingers. "You don't know what you're asking."

"Of course I do, Robert – it's the same thing you ask of me."

His eyes jerked open. She watched as he processed this, holding her breath.

"You fight dirty," he said finally.

"Yes," she agreed with a broad smile, realizing that she had won.

"All right," he capitulated with a sigh. "I just hope you know what you've let yourself in for."

With a tender smile, she set her hands on either side of his face and kissed him softly on the lips. "Robert. When I'm helping you I'm doing what I love most in all the world."

He grinned, the old, boyish, zestful Robert grin that she adored. "You're crazy, you know that."

Anna laughed aloud, feeling – for the first time in fourteen years – completely free of the torment of the past, all previous sins at last erased by the overpowering strength of their love. "Yes, I am."

"So am I," he said emphatically.

"Crazy together?"

"Yeah. Now get some sleep – you're going to need your strength," he said, leering at her.

"You promise?" she asked innocently, her eyes dancing.

Robert captured her lips with his. "I promise."

-----

Robert awoke from a deep, restful sleep and lifted his head, surveying the landscape. The sky was beginning to brighten. By his estimation dawn was no more than an hour away. They would have to move soon, but not just yet. There was still time for reflection, time to cast his mind back over the monumental events that had just turned his life upside down. Again.

He gazed down at the form of his sleeping wife, who lay snuggled tightly in the crook of his arm, her head pillowed on his shoulder. This past night he had once again been amazed by her selflessness, astonished and humbled by her willingness to sacrifice anything and everything she had – including her own life – to ensure his safety and happiness.

This had by no means been the first time. Unbidden, his mind traveled back a few short weeks – although how long ago that seemed now! He'd just come back from New York, where he had received an utterly unexpected shock. He'd returned home late the next evening, still grasping – as he had been all day – for a way to break the news to his wife.

Perceptive as Anna was, she'd realized immediately that something was wrong. "Robert? What is it?"

The concern in her voice drew him out of his silence. "It's…it's Holly," he managed finally.

Her eyes looked a question.

"She's – I saw her. She's alive."

Anna gasped. "What?"

"In Manhattan, at the party. She was there…" Looking so much the same, the same as she had when he lost her, those seven years ago.

"How?" Anna breathed, her eyes intent on his face.

"She – the plane crashed, but she survived. Some Bushmen found her, took her to a tiny clinic. She was in a coma for weeks, and when she awoke she had amnesia." He laughed harshly. "It sounds like something out of a bloody romance novel, but for six years she didn't know who she was. Said it was only when she returned to New York City last fall that she remembered everything."

His eyes, awash with guilt and pain, slid to Anna's. "I should have gone. I should have gone to the crash site. She was there all the time, in pain…"

Again his voice trailed off. He could hardly bear to remember that time, the anguish and loss he had felt.

Anna reached out to grip his hand in hers. "Robert. You mustn't blame yourself."

He shook his head wordlessly. Of course he was to blame. Wasn't he the one who prided himself on putting family before everything? He should have gone…

Only then did he realize Anna was still speaking to him.

" – Holly?"

"What?"

Anna squeezed his hand. "At the party. What – what did she want?"

Robert's heart swelled with gratitude towards his wife. She didn't doubt his story, didn't ask if he was sure it really was Holly, despite the fact he could barely believe it himself. His despondent mood lifted a little, and with an effort he pulled himself out of the past and back into the present moment. "She came to warn me."

"About what?"

"Faison."

So he had told her, and together they'd worked up a plan to keep Robin safely out of harm's way. Late that night they lay together in their darkened bedroom, lost in their own thoughts. Finally, Anna turned in his arms and placed one hand gently on his chest, gazing at him with a meltingly tender expression. "Thinking about Holly?"

"Hmmm?" He couldn't lie to her. "Yes."

"It wasn't your fault," Anna repeated insistently, seeming to instinctively know where his thoughts had strayed. "You did everything you could. They told you she was dead, and if you'd gone out there yourself there might have been two crashes instead of just one."

Robert shut his eyes, listening not so much to the words themselves as to the sorrow, the compassion and the sympathy that warmed the rich tone of his wife's voice, soothing his pain and balming his wound. He felt her lips lightly brush his chest, and opened his eyes to see her intense brown ones staring unflinchingly into his.

"Robert." She licked her lips, the way she did when she was deadly serious about something. "How did seeing Holly last night make you feel? Besides guilt, do you still have… feelings for her?"

He was stumped. "Feelings?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes. Do you – do you still love Holly?"

Once again, he couldn't lie. Even if it might make things easier between them. He settled for: "A part of me will always love Holly."

As he feared, Anna wasn't reassured by his words. She pressed, "But she was your wife, Robert. Before we…found each other again. And now she's back. Alive. I need to know if you still love her."

He leaned forward and kissed his wife's brow. "I love you."

She smiled, tight and bittersweet. "I know. I love you, too. But, Robert…you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

"Tell you what?"

"If you would rather – if you want to be with her."

"What? Why?"

"Because –" She stopped, swallowed hard, and began again in a raw whisper, "Because if that's what you want, I…I won't…I won't try to stop you. I won't try to make you stay."

He stared at her, capturing her beautiful face, her long raven hair in his mind as though in a photograph he could tuck in his heart for all time. He felt if he concentrated hard enough, he could stop time and freeze the instant forever. He could imagine no greater love than this, than that she would offer to sacrifice her own happiness for his. Her eyes shone with unshed tears as she waited for his reply.

How could he ever tell her how much she meant to him? Mere words were so inadequate to the task. He reached for the slender hand that rested on his chest and cradled it in his own. "My Anna. How I do love you!" He lifted her fingers to his lips as gently as if they were made of the finest china and brushed a burning kiss over each one in succession.

Then he raised his eyes squarely to hers. "I did love Holly, once. But that…that was the past. You're my present, and my future. I look at you and I see the woman I adore, the woman I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. I'm not going anywhere," he swore with the fervor of a vow, and pulled her unresisting into his arms.

----

Her eyes were open and she was gazing at him.

"Such a serious look so early in the morning," she chided lightly.

He frowned. "I'm trying to decide where we go from here."

She rested her chin on his chest, mock-pouting. "Is the honeymoon over already?"

"Mmmm? Afraid so. Sun's almost up, we can't stay here much longer."

Anna sighed and rolled over. "All right, then. What do you have in mind?"

There was a moment of silence. Then Robert said aloud what they both were dreading to even contemplate. "We can't go back to Port Charles."

Anna nodded. "I know," she whispered, feeling a sharp stab in her chest like a knife to the heart.

"We can't put Robin, or Mac, in any more danger," he went on slowly, as though the words were being dragged out of him. "That's the first place Faison's henchmen would look for us. And if they ever found us, they would certainly kill us all in revenge. The only way we can keep them safe, the only way we can protect the people we love is to…to…" He trailed off.

Anna had to shut her eyes against the agony in her husband's voice. It was so unfair. In fourteen years he'd had so little time with them. So much time they had wasted, so many years they had lost. So much of it was her fault. And Robin – their precious daughter. All she had ever wanted was for the three of them to be a family. Tears welled in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She had to be strong now, for Robin and for Robert.

She reached up and touched a hand to his cheek, trying to comfort him as best she could. "Robin has Mac, and Sean and Tiffany…" she reminded him gently.

"I know." His voice was almost inaudible.

"She'll be alright, Robert. I know she will."

The corners of his mouth twitched. "Of course she will. She's our daughter."

Anna sighed deeply, forcing herself to see past the anguish of the moment and focus on what was to come. "So we can't go back to the States, then."

Robert shook his head. "No. It's too close to Faison's reach. And we certainly can't hang around here. As soon as it gets light we'll find the nearest town and get ourselves out of the country. Today, if possible." He twisted a little to face her. "I don't know what you're gonna think of this, but I have an idea of where we can go."

Anna smiled. She'd already thought of the ideal place - the one other place in the world, besides their home in Port Charles, where she might truly be happy. "Me, too."

"San Marino," they said in unison.

"Do you really mean that?" she asked seriously, biting her lip. As perfect as it sounded to her, it was hard for her to imagine her street-savvy, urban technophile husband willingly settling down in a sleepy Italian village. "Would you really be happy there?"

Robert leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. "I'll be happy any place, as long as I'm with you. Besides, it's where we got married."

Anna felt a grin creasing her face. "The first time."

"First and best," he grinned back, "except this last time."

"Last and final time," she promised, abruptly solemn and feeling a bone-deep need to express aloud her utter devotion to this man who, through everything, she never had and never could stop loving. Although they'd had so little time together across the span of the years, she wouldn't trade her days and weeks with him for lifetimes with anyone else.

"But it's also where Robin was conceived," he noted carefully. Their presence in the village would be a constant reminder of the distance they could never again bridge to child of their hearts. "Can you bear it?"

She folded her fingers over the back of his hand, threaded her fingers through his and raised them to her lips. She kissed his palm gently, reverently. "As long as I'm with you."

Robert pulled her into a fierce embrace. "We'll never be apart. Never again."

FIN

14


End file.
